10th February: refining and petrochemicals news

Germany

The Linde Group has signed a long term contract with Nynas. Linde will supply hydrogen at the company’s Hamburg plant. Linde will be building a steam methane reformer plant at the site at the cost of approximately 30 million Euros.

India

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd began running the Vizag refinery at full capacity again on 25th January. The plant in Southern India partially shutdown in August after a fire broke out in a cooling tower.

Nigeria

Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (KRPC) have denied reports of a fire at its refinery. The alleged incident occurred at the tanker loading area near the refinery and apparently affected production and distribution at the plant. Refinery officials said the incident did not happen inside the plant.

The Philippines

Philipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. has said it will decide on final expansion plans for the Batangas refinery in the next two to three months. The plant needs expanding to ensure security of supply in The Philippines.

USA

At the end of January a flaring incident occurred at the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge refinery. No injuries were reported after a compressor malfunction which cased the equipment to spark and a chemical flare.

Vietnam

Vung Ro Petroleum Ltd. (VRP) has let a service related contract to Ineos. The contract is for a 900 000 tpy polypropylene facility at the Hoa Tam Commune refinery which is a grassroots facility in the Dong Hoa district of Phu Yen Province. Ineos will be providing its Innovene PP process for the manufacture of homopolymers, random copolymers and impact copolymers. The refinery is expected to be commissioned in 2018.